Salt
by Entwinedlove
Summary: Complete. / In his last semester of an Engineering degree, Bucky takes an elective class about Unusual Soulmate Marks, mostly because he has one. To cheer him up after the first day of classes, his friend Abby suggests doing a magic ritual to reassure him about his soulmate. What he learns from the ritual sends him veering away from the safe life he had planned.
1. Chapter 1

Bucky Barnes opened his laptop and pulled up his student edition of a popular writing program. It was his last, first class of the day, of his last semester at Columbia. Engineering with a concentration in Kinetics.

He debated pulling out a pencil and notebook too, some professors weren't keen on the sound of keys tapping as students took notes; they thought it was too distracting. He decided not to bother with it and instead typed the name of the course at the top of the page.

_Unusual Soulmarks and the History of Unaccepted Bonds_

Bucky was particularly interested in the subject because he had an unusual soulmate mark. Instead of the coin-sized, round, dark red mark on his sternum, he had something different. His was still round and intricate like normal marks, but it was also a deep purple. When he'd been younger, his mother had taken him to the doctor thinking it was a bruise. The doctor confirmed that it wasn't a bruise but an unusual soulmark.

An older man, whom Bucky assumed was the professor, walked in and turned around to write his name on the whiteboard. Large, all capital letters spelled out Doctor Levine. He turned around and looked up at the lecture hall. Bucky was sitting halfway up the left side of the room, and he looked around too; the stadium seating was almost packed full. Bucky returned his attention to the professor. The man's tanned skin was wrinkled a bit with age, and there was an upturn to his nose. His mouth and chin were obscured by a salt and pepper beard, but his head was bald. It shined under the lecture hall lights.

"Welcome to the Unusual Marks course. First and foremost, I would like to set down this rule, as I'm sure this class skews higher than most when it comes to this. It's likely a good many of you have unusual soulmate marks. I will not be accepting any student in this class as a patient or client while the class is ongoing. This is to keep a degree of professional separation between us and to protect your grades from biased opinions. If you registered for this class with the assumption you could get around your insurance or to speak with me about your unusual mark without having to make an appointment, you will be disappointed. Let me be quite clear, if you violate this rule, I can and will kick you out of this class and deny any attempts you may make at becoming a patient of mine in the future." 

He paused and licked his lips. From where Bucky was sitting he could hear the smacking sound. Bucky hoped that wouldn't be one of the professor's ticks. He'd had a history professor in his first semester who whistled with every ess sound she made, and it drove him crazy.

When the professor looked around again, presumably to see if everyone was listening he went on. "Soulmate marks didn't start showing up on people's skin until the latter half of the twentieth century." There was a scrambling sound as students throughout the hall grabbed notebooks and pens or hurried to open their own laptops. Bucky felt proud of himself for already being prepared for the lesson. He turned the laptop just a bit and settled his hands over the black keys to take notes.

"Experts in the field say that their appearance now is due to the high number of mages doing more soul magics, specifically in the area of Bonds, than in previous centuries. Mages are pushing the boundaries of soul magics, more things are being discovered with regards to safely practicing the arts and so forth. The appearance of marks, however, does not mean you are any more likely to find your soulmate now than people were before the marks were visible." Bucky wondered how true that was with all the popular mark-matching apps popping up these days. He'd heard some of them were frauds, actors who were markless using makeup to lure in unsuspecting, lonely people.

Doctor Levine smacked his lips again and walked over to his desk to take a sip of water from the mug there. When he'd finished his sip, he looked back up to make sure people were still listening. "With the emergence of the visible marks, we've been able to study unusual marks that past experts could only speculate on before. This class is dedicated to fifteen case studies of documented unusual soulmate marks."

He went on lecturing for the next half hour, expounding on the history of soulmate marks and Bonds. He even mentioned how in past generations an Accepted soulmate bond was seen as more significant than marriage when it came to Abrahamic religions, which Bucky had thought was a myth. Nowadays the major world religions had a plethora of views regarding Bonds and their legitimacy.

Levine proposed a thought experiment at the end of the lesson. "How would the world—or just your life—be different if soulmates weren't given a choice in the matter? Does Acceptance matter?"

Bucky could probably write an entire paper on that question alone. He jotted down a few thoughts while most of the students around him packed up and started lining up to leave the hall. He saved his document and closed his laptop, tucking it in his bag. Instead of going up the stairs with the rest of the students, he headed down.

"Doctor Levine," Bucky said as he descended the last step onto the mustard-colored tiled floor. When the professor turned his attention to him, he started, "I was curious—"

"Remember my rule about attempting to see me about your personal mark without going through the proper channels."

"I know, sir," Bucky said, ducking his head a little. There had just been... well, the way the professor talked about unusual marks had been quite pessimistic, and Bucky needed to know his opinion. "In your opinion, do those with unusual marks tend to have a smaller chance of finding their soulmates? And what is the likelihood of those Bonds being Accepted?"

Levine nodded like he approved of the question. Bucky felt a spark of pride that he'd offered a thought-provoking question to one of the experts in the field. "In my experience," Levine said, smacking his lips again, "those with unusual marks almost never have their Bonds fully Accepted, even if they find their soulmates."

Bucky was struck dumb for a moment as his professor's words sunk in. "Never?" he parroted.

"Not that I've seen in my decades of study. Now if you'll excuse me," he said. He stepped away only to be accosted by the next student with a question. Bucky could hear him reiterating his rule about patients.

Never. It was such a little word and on its own, it wasn't good or bad. You could say, "I'll never smoke" and in that context, was seen as something good. At that moment, however, _never_ felt like the most horrible word in the English language. Even if he found his soulmate in the billions of people on the planet, it was likely the Bond would never be accepted. Either he wouldn't be able to accept who they were, or they wouldn't be able to accept who he was on a fundamental level. Or one of them wouldn't be sexually attracted to the other. That sort of thing happened. A man and woman would be soulmates, but the man would be gay. Or any other combination one could think up.

He gasped like the thought had stolen his breath, and then turned and headed up the stairs. He couldn't stand there and dwell. Doctor Levine would have another lecture soon, and Bucky had to get to work. Abby would be at work. He wasn't sure of Donovan's schedule. Either way, Bucky needed to get back across campus to his dorm to change clothes.

At home, Bucky stumbled into his bedroom, already in the process of dropping his bag to the floor and pulling off his shirt. He said a terse hi to his dorm mate Matt but didn't expect an answer. Matt's headphones were blasting metal and Bucky could feel the energy in the room pulling towards him as he worked on Enchanting the action figure sitting in front of his keyboard.

Oscar, their cat, was laying on Bucky's clean work shirt on his bed. "Come on, kitty," he said, petting the cat with one hand and trying to pull the black shirt out with the other. Unfortunately, Oscar's white fur covered the shirt. He'd have to grab the rock by the door that Matt had Enchanted to dissolve cat fur before he left. His boss would have his head if he arrived at the kitchens with cat fur coating his clothes. He changed quickly, grabbed a meal-replacement granola bar from the kitchen and darted out the door. He got halfway down the stairs before he remembered he hadn't grabbed the rock at the door. He sighed, rolled his eyes at himself, and backtracked up the stairs to do so.

"Cutting it close, aren't you?" Donovan said as Bucky sprinted to the time clock through the back door.

"The train was five minutes behind schedule," he snapped as he pulled his badge from his wallet and swiped it. The clock accepted the punch and gave an annoyingly dissonant, loud beep in acknowledgment.

Abby's light brown afro appeared from behind the counter before the rest of her. She pressed her lips into a line and gave Donovan a look, then she turned her attention to Bucky. "What's got you upset?"

"Who said anything about being upset?" he mumbled, shrugging and slipping his badge back into his wallet. He headed to the sink to wash his hands to start his shift.

"You don't have to _say_ anything," she said, coming around to his side to bump her boney shoulder against his.

"Did you Divine I'd be upset today?" he teased. He shouldn't tease, he knew, she was the best Diviner mage he'd ever come across.

"Nope. I'm your best friend. I can just tell," she said, rolling her brown eyes. "You get grumpy. So, what's up? Classes not go well?"

"Just some bad news from an expert is all." He said, pulling two paper towels from the bin and drying his hands.

"Oh, is that all?" sarcasm soaked her words.

"You're taking Doctor Levine's course, aren't you?" Donovan asked, gesturing in their direction with a flour-covered thick-fingered hand. "I've heard that guy's super pessimistic. The kind of guy who wouldn't say congratulations to his own soulmate-Accepted daughter on her wedding day. I heard he went into Bonds theory because he didn't have a mark of his own."

"Is that it? That's what's got you down? A stuffy old professor telling you that finding your soulmate is hopeless?"

Bucky sighed and tossed his paper towels in the trash. "An expert in his field giving evidence-based facts that even if I find my soulmate, there won't be Acceptance," he rephrased.

"Hey, Abby!" John, the shift manager, called from the front. "I need you at the front counter taking orders tonight!"

She glanced back in John's direction and told him she'd be right up. "Maybe you just need to do a Seeking Dream. You know, to ease your mind," she said. She turned and headed to the counter. Bucky was left wondering what the hell a Seeking Dream was while he and Donovan made pizzas and grinder subs. 

He didn't get a chance to ask her about it until it was closing time at the end of their shift. "So what's a Seeking Dream?" he asked as he tucked his wallet back into his pocket. The time clock blared it's dissonance again as Abby scanned her badge.

"Oh, it's just a simple little Divination-Bonds ritual. Gives you a dream to reassure you that you've got a soulmate out there and that they will accept you. It's really fuzzy, you don't see their face or the real scenario even." She pulled her purse out of the locker next to the door and then the three of them stepped out into the cool night air.

"Have you done it?" Bucky said. Anything that combined two different types of magic sounded much more complicated than "simple" but maybe that was his biases kicking in. Soul magics weren't in his bag of tricks, really. His mom had always warned him that soul magics were dangerous, deadly even, if not done properly. He hadn't truly shed the notion despite meeting plenty of people who worked with them.

"Yep. At a slumber party in high school. It was fun. We each took turns, and then we gossipped about what we saw. I mean, we all knew it wasn't the real way we'd meet our soulmates, but it was a lot of fun."

"Well, on that note, I'm out," Donovan said, giving them his typical peace-sign wave as he started on his walk home. He wasn't a mage so when talk of rituals and spells started up, he usually ducked out.

Bucky and Abby called out their goodbyes to their friend. As he walked away, Bucky wondered what Donovan's life was like. Donovan had met his soulmate in high school, as cheesy as that sounds, and they'd married right after graduation. They were both working, Donovan was still in school, and they had a kid at home. Bucky didn't want to think he was jealous—he knew wasn't ready for marriage and a baby—but he did feel something like longing when he thought about Donovan's lot in life.

Abby hadn't met her soulmate yet, but she was confident she'd meet her soon. She snapped her fingers in front of him, and his eyes focused on the shiny purple polish on her nails. "Earth to Bucky. Do you want me to bring you the book that we used?"

He blinked and refocused his attention on her. "Yeah. I mean, I guess. You said it was easy to do, right?"

"You still haven't popped your soul magics cherry, huh?"

He rolled his eyes at her language but shook his head. "Been too busy with school."

"Your concentration is in corporeal magics and you haven't bothered to explore the other side?" she asked, a tease to her tone. They made their way to the subway platform to wait for their trains, one to take him back to campus and the other to take her home. Bucky had to step around a few people to keep pace with her.

"Kinetics is the logical magic to study alongside engineering."

She wrinkled her nose at his answer. "Magic is supposed to be fun and freeing. Don't tell me you subscribe to the 'there's only so much energy in the universe' crap."

He snorted. "Of course not. You think we'd have been friends this long if I thought that? You'd have kicked me to the curb long before now if I believed something as ridiculous as that."

"Then you should try everything. Responsibly." The loud rushing sound of an incoming train caused her to raise her voice, "I'll bring you that book tomorrow!"

The ride back to campus was quiet, and Bucky let his thoughts drift.

The following evening, Bucky cracked open the well-loved book Abby had given him at work. The section about Seeking Dreams had sparkly green nail polish on some of the corners of the pages. He felt a rush of nerves just looking through the book of soul magics, but he read through the ritual twice before moving. He needed Circle Salt, something that neither he nor Matt had in the dorm as both of them focused on corporeal magics. A quick internet search said chalk or table salt could work in a pinch. He just needed to make sure to create a thick line. Seeing as how he'd be pulling energy from within himself to fill the space inside the circle, the thick line was meant to keep that space sealed. That sort of thing was probably what led to the deaths of people dabbling in soul magics in his mom's time. Or it happened once and got blown out of proportion by the media. He set up on the kitchen floor because their vacuum cleaner was a piece of shit and probably wouldn't get half the salt if he poured it onto the carpet. The hard floor made keeping the salt line neat both easier and harder. It was easy to knock a bit of salt out of place but just as easy to fix it too.

He also needed a small pillow to set inside the circle to rest his head on. It had to be just the right distance so the circle went unbroken under his neck. It was a little more complicated than suggested. Finally, he resorted to using a rolled up towel because his bed pillows were too big and floppy.

He took a few selfies with his phone to make sure the circle was unbroken under his neck. That, too, took a little reworking. Just as he was settled and ready to start pulling the energy from within himself, Oscar darted across the room right next to his head. Getting up could potentially mess up the circle underneath his shoulders, again, so he surveyed the area with his phone's camera. He looked like one of those medieval paintings of saints. The salt made it look like he had a halo around his head. He snapped a picture and sent it to Abby. _Wish me luck_, he texted.

When he was sure everything was as good as it was going to get, he put his phone in his pocket and closed his eyes. There were a few false starts when he tried to pull energy externally and found it empty feeling before he figured out how to pull the energy from within himself. After a few moments, when he was sure the space was filled he said the incantation to initiate the Dream. It was supposed to feel like falling asleep.

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes but just like corporeal magics, there was nothing to see. He frowned. Did soul magics require more energy to channel something than corporeal magics? He didn't know. He closed his eyes and focused again, pulling more energy from himself to fill the circle around his head.

He repeated the exercise twice more. Sweat was beading on his forehead, and his head was starting to ache. If soul mages felt this much strain when doing their thing, surely he would have heard about it? Was this normal? Maybe it was typical to feel this amount of strain the first time.

On the fifth time drawing energy from inside himself, he could almost feel his magic pressing at the edges of the circle. Finally. He said the incantation.

There was a swooping sensation in his stomach and nausea rolled over him. He felt like he was falling from a great height rather than falling asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve couldn't believe he was here. He never expected signing up for that experimental procedure as a last ditch effort to join the army would pan out like this. But here he was, sitting across from easily the most beautiful woman in his world, sharing secret smiles and heated glances. They'd not worked a lot together—she'd been one of his commanding officers during training—but they'd connected deeply.

At first, Steve had thought he was just star-struck over her. He'd never been much of a dater, not like some of his neighborhood friends, and the few times he did get dates they never rated him very highly. He was not high up on the list.

He thought he was just mooning over the first dame to really see him until she set him down a few nights ago to explain that he wasn't the only one feeling things. He'd just succeeded in his first combat mission, and the elation of saving four hundred men, even if he received a demerit for insubordination, had him flying high. Hearing she had feelings for him too had sent him to the moon. He'd asked her then and there to Accept their soulbond.

She'd been a little taken aback, of course—what dame wouldn't be, right?—but agreed if he took her out on a date. They'd ended up at the same pub where his new team was celebrating, but they'd waved off joining them. Instead, they'd shared a dance, something slow so he didn't step on her toes, and now were relaxing at a table in the corner, sipping whiskey and conversing in low tones.

"I never thought I'd have a soulmate, you know. I'm so happy we've found each other. I'm looking forward to learning to dance now that I've found the right partner." He reached across the table and held her hand. "Will you Accept me as your soulmate?" The skin on his sternum tingled.

"Yes, I Accept our Bond. I'm grateful to have found you as well." She squeezed his hand. Heat blossomed in his chest as his soulmark became visible. She must have experienced the sensation too because she smiled, bright and almost shyly. Steve was about to lean over the table and press his lips to hers when the ceiling did something strange behind her.

It went dark and blurry, the wooden boards swirled and seemed to separate. A man fell through the opening and landed on his back. The portal snapped closed after him. The man made a sharp inhale to try and counter the way the ground had punched the air out of his chest. He looked around, and his eyes grew wide. He scrambled to his bare feet and wrapped his arms around his chest. He was only in his undershirt, and it was soaked through with sweat. He looked sick. He retreated a few steps until his back hit the bar. "This doesn't feel like a dream to me," he said to himself before collapsing in a dead faint.

Steve and Peggy stood up at the same time, going to the man's aid. His skin was flushed and tacky with sweat. Peggy spoke to the bartender, "May I get a wet cloth to try to revive him?"

"Yeah, sure. Never seen anyone fall through the ceiling before," the barkeep said, grabbing a clean cloth and wetting it. He handed it to her and added, "You can pull him into the back room there." He pointed to the door with an "employees only" sign in the corner. "Fellow looks like he's had a few too many."

She looked back at the passed out man at their feet. "He looks like he's suffering from magic drain, actually."

Steve hoisted the young man up into his arms and carried him through the door the bartender had indicated, laying him down on the couch inside the small room. Peggy knelt next to the man's head and pressed the cool cloth against his forehead.

Steve wasn't a mage. Didn't have a drop of magical blood, nor did he know anyone magical growing up. He knew a few basics—like the difference between corporeal and soul magics—but he didn't know what this fella had been up to or how to help him. He supposed with his new team, he'd get a quick primer on it as Jacques and Peggy were both mages of different concentrations. "What's magic drain?" 

Peggy looked over her shoulder at him. "You know the difference between corporeal and soul magics, right?"

"One deals with things that are tangible. The other, intangible."

She looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding. "Yes, but also, one draws magical energy from the environment around the mage and the other draws energy from within the mage. That's why salt circles are so important, they let a mage create a smaller space to fill with energy. By looking at him, I suspect his circle was either too large or broken."

"And he kept drawing from within himself trying to fill the space of the room he was in without realizing it."

"Exactly," she said. The man jerked in his sleep, and she turned back to him to dab at his forehead again. The scene struck a very domestic chord in Steve's chest. She had a tenderness, a gentleness, about her that seemed so different from the way she presented herself around other soldiers and superiors. He couldn't help imagining what their life might be like after the war was over.

After another moment of just watching her, Steve asked, "Is there anything I can do to help? Do you need me to get anything?"

She hummed thoughtfully but before she could answer, the man's eyelashes fluttered. She pulled the cloth away from his face, and his gaze followed the movement. When he saw her, he blinked and sat up, then rubbed at his eyes with one hand. When he focused again, his bewilderment came back. 

"It's good to see you're awake, soldier," she said. "Whatever magic you were attempting put quite the strain on you."

"I'm..." he croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm not a soldier." He shook his head as he said it and, his longer-than-regulation hair confirmed his answer. His gaze slipped down her torso. Worry crept into his expression. Steve got the feeling it wasn't because the fella hadn't ever seen a woman before. The man swallowed and then looked back up at her face. "Where am I?"

"The Whip & Fiddle pub in London," she answered. Gesturing back at Steve with a tip of her head, she said, "This is Captain Rogers, and I'm Agent Carter."

"James Barnes," he said, though he still seemed distracted. He looked at Steve, but there didn't seem to be any recognition in his eyes. He probably just hadn't made the connection that Captain Rogers was Captain America. They hadn't exactly been using his name in all the propaganda.

"If you don't mind me asking," Peggy said, drawing his attention back to her, "What sort of magic were you attempting?"

"Uh, a Seeking Dream."

"Bonds work. Do you often dabble in illegal magic?" she asked, like some straight-laced rule-follower. Like she hadn't helped Steve cross into enemy-occupied terrain against orders when he set out on his seemingly hopeless first mission. Steve glanced away to try to hide the smirk that spread across his lips at the thought.

"It's not—ah, man," the man said. He raked both hands through his hair and inhaled deeply before trying to defend himself. "It's not illegal where I'm from. My friend suggested it. She said it was supposed to be a fuzzy scenario to reassure me that I would find my soulmate. I obviously did something wrong because this is not fuzzy or dream-like at all..."

"As far as I'm aware, Seeking Dreams are so the seeker knows what the experience of meeting a soulmate and Accepting the bond feels like. The seeker awakens when their soulmark is revealed," Peggy explained.

"I thought you said they were illegal?" he asked.

"They are. Doesn't mean we're not taught the theory of them. Where are you from, then?"

"Brooklyn," he answered. "New York."

"Bonds work is illegal there too," Steve said. He may not know much about magic, but he knew that at least.

"Not in the year 2009," the man added, looking up at him. He rubbed at his sternum as if to ease an ache. "And my soulmark is already revealed. Babies have been born with them visible since the '60s."

Peggy looked at Steve, and there was astonishment and maybe a little fear in her eyes. "Well," he said, trying to find the best course of action for them to take. "You may have done something wrong, but your magic did _do_ something. It brought you to the bar, brought you here—which is 1943, in case you're wondering. So maybe we should proceed under the assumption that you're still in the Dream. I'd say your soulmate was probably in the bar when you dropped in."

Peggy's expression had shifted to determined. Her lips pressed together, though, and if Steve interpreted the look correctly, she was thinking the same thing he was. The bar had been crowded, and only a small number of the patrons had been women. Now, it was possible that this fella's soulmate was another man—Steve had heard of it happening, especially in the neighborhood he'd lived in—but it wasn't something that was bandied about. That was the sort of thing that could get you a blue ticket or arrested.

"And if I don't find them? Or they don't Accept me? Do I just... never wake up?"

"Worst-case scenario, yes," Peggy said bluntly. "Or they're a fellow soldier, and they die before the both of you have Acceptance. I'd hope that if that happened, you would still wake up in your own time."

He nodded, the expression on his face showing resignation. Finally, after another moment of looking at his lap like he was lost, he looked up and asked, "What do I do until then?"

After some discussion, it was decided that going home to Brooklyn would be futile since his soulmate was here, but he couldn't just wander around London as an able-bodied American man not in uniform without looking suspicious. So Peggy asked if he could be recruited into the SSR. He had most of an engineering degree and he was skilled in Kinetics which would make a good addition to Steve's commando team. Barnes had also been a part of the JROTC program in high school, and that lent him some credibility when it came to Colonel Phillips' decision. Barnes hadn't had any basic training—but neither had Steve really. The deciding factor was when Barnes proved he could shoot. And shoot well.

Barnes—Bucky—seemed like he would be a good fit with the team. He was from Brooklyn and Steve expected he would get along well with him and Dum Dum. He was quiet for the most part, though, and Steve didn't know if he should try to push him to join in with the group's bantering or not.

Bucky's first real trial came when they were supposed to scout ahead to a Hydra base in the north of France. They crossed paths with German scouts and were fired upon. They fired back then doubled back and got away safely. Bucky was a mess. Steve could see the whites of his eyes, and his hands were shaking as he clutched his rifle. Dum Dum made a face and bumped Steve's shoulder. "Where'd you get one this green?" he asked.

Peggy had looked consternated at Dum Dum and pulled Bucky away a little to talk with him. Steve overheard them. "I couldn't shoot them. I couldn't... they were just, they're just people," Bucky was mumbling. "I know what atrocities... they're... the Nazis... are committing, but I couldn't do it..."

Her voice was soothing compared to his stilted, harried words. "Shooting a man in an effort to kill is very hard to do—"

"But that's what we're supposed to do!"

"Listen to me," she said. "Shooting to kill is hard, especially so when they're shooting back, but this team is your family now. And to protect your family, you've got to learn to shoot the bad guys."

"But we're bad guys too," he whispered. "I know what we do, what happens—"

"Pretend you don't. Stay right here with us. This is your reality now, for however long this Dream lasts. Do you hear me? This isn't make believe. This is real. It's war. We compromise. We might not sleep well at night because of that, but we do it so that others can be free. Think about your life, however it is in the future; think about how it would be different if we don't make these compromises now. If we don't fight back."

His breathing had evened out a little, and Steve saw the moment when he truly committed to being a soldier. He looked up at Peggy, and although the fear in his eyes hadn't faded completely, there was determination there. "Okay."

She nodded and gave him a little pat on the arm as she rejoined the rest of the team. 

After that, Bucky seemed hell-bent and determined to do his part. Steve could still see the fear on his face when they got close or engaged with the enemy, but he always went through with the mission.

At one point, they were tromping through thickly wooded undergrowth in a downpour. Jacques, wearing a set of goggles that he'd Enchanted to help him see people in low light situations, raised his hand and called for them to stop. He'd spotted a patrol they needed to take out, standing under a small awning at the foot of a bridge. It would mean either a long shot with a rifle or trying to creep close enough without being detected. Steve might have been capable of the feat, but he wanted to discuss their options first. They huddled around and spoke only as loud as the had to to be heard over the rain. "I could create an Illusion, but there's no guarantee that he would leave his post to investigate it," Peggy said.

When Steve glanced around the group they didn't seem to have any other ideas. Jacques shook his head but looked at Gabe to translate the answer into English for him. "He'd have to lay hands on anything to Enchant it," Gabe said.

Bucky spoke quietly, grim-faced but confident, "I can take him out."

"Just gonna throw a rock at his head with Kinetics or something?" Dum Dum taunted.

Bucky gave him a hard look. "Or something." He looked up at Steve for affirmation, and when he got the go-ahead, he set his pack down. He moved only a few yards down the hillside and then laid down on his belly in the wet leaves and mud. He took his time lining up the shot. Before he took it, Steve saw Peggy and Jacques nodding, like they felt him do some bit of magic or something. Dum Dum, too, was looking on with more interest than he'd had in Bucky since meeting him.

For a split second, it seemed like the rain stopped completely. The shot rang out in the sudden silence, and the patrolling German dropped. The rain started back up so quickly and in such a rush that Steve thought he might have imagined the odd break in the weather.

Dum Dum started forward, a jaunty motion to his arms like he was going to congratulate Bucky, but Bucky raised his hand over his shoulder without turning around. The rest of the team froze. A second shot rang out. This time Steve was absolutely positive the downpour had ceased for the moment it took him to shoot. Bucky laid there for a few more tense moments before he stood back up. A quick motion of his hand had the mud on his jacket sluicing off. He sighed and looked up at them, his gaze settling on Steve.

Steve gave him a nod, giving him whatever affirmation he needed. The boys pilfered the enemy soldiers' weapons and rations when they crossed the bridge.

Later that night, they'd taken shelter from the rain in a small abandoned farmhouse. He, Peggy, and Bucky were the last ones awake. Bucky had offered to take watch. It had been a while since they'd found a place that offered this much sanctuary, and Steve had wanted to spend the extra time with Peggy, so they were still awake and sitting close. She had her head on his shoulder, having grown comfortable in showing affection in front of Bucky.

Steve asked him, "Why did you stop the rain? _How_ did you stop the rain?"

Bucky shrugged. "I'm a Kineticist. I can manipulate the elements—within range and reason—and make things move. I might have been able to make the shot in the rain at that distance, but I wanted to be absolutely sure I got them."

"So you stopped the wind and rain so they wouldn't interfere with your shot," Peggy said.

He nodded. He looked down at where Steve was holding Peggy's hand and smiled. He tilted his head towards the hallway and the second bedroom. "Go on, I said I'd take watch."

Peggy didn't hesitate. She stood and tugged on Steve's hand, pulling him along with her. She gestured for him to precede her and though he gave her an odd look, he did as she indicated. As he was walking away, he heard her whisper to Bucky, "I'm proud of you."

Steve smiled as he heard the words. He had similar feelings for Bucky. Once he put his mind to it, he excelled at whatever he did. Even though he found killing distasteful, he did it with competence and grace. That subtle confidence and skill were what had caught Steve's eye first when Peggy was concerned too.

He stopped two steps from the bed and just stared at it. He let that last thought repeat in his mind. Did he actually feel a connection to Bucky? Surely the Seeking Dream wouldn't have brought him to the bar just seconds after Steve and Peggy had Accepted their Bond if he was meant to be Bucky's soulmate. It's not like he would have been able to Accept him. He already had a soulmate in Peggy. 

Peggy let her fingers tickle at his side as she walked around him. She looked up at him from under her lashes as she started unbuttoning her blouse. Steve swallowed and tried to focus on her. It wasn't like they had very many moments to themselves out here; he should try to enjoy the brief reprieve while they had it.

He should definitely not spend it thinking about how Bucky could have been his soulmate.

* . * . *

Peggy dusted her hands off on her skirt and stood up. She took a second to make sure that her salt circle was solid around her before starting to draw magical energy from inside herself. One of Jacques's explosions went off some distance to her left, but she didn't let it distract her from her task. Right now, she was the men's back up. Bucky was behind her, ready with his rifle to make her Illusions come to life if it was needed, but she was almost positive she wouldn't need him to. When the doors to the base slammed open she spread out her hands in front of her. A company of soldiers, a hundred strong, appeared between her and the doors, all with their weapons pointed at the enemy. The HYDRA soldiers rushed out and then backpedaled, eyes wide and startled. They dropped their weapons and raised their hands in surrender.

Well, almost all of them. One had started to raise his rifle like he was going to take on all of the company by himself. A sharp crack rang out as Bucky dropped the odd man out. Peggy made sure to have one of the men in the back of her Illusion lower his rifle slightly like he was the one to take the shot.

There was another explosion in the building they'd run out of, and the handful of enemy soldiers moved forward just a few more yards. The trap that Jacques had Enchanted sprang up around them when they entered it. Peggy felt magical energy pull behind her as Bucky directed the slight breeze moving through the trees into a sharp whirlwind that swept through the cage so forcefully it knocked their guns out of their hands. When the guns were on the ground, they skittered out past the bars of the cage back towards Peggy's illusion. She could feel the weariness of holding the magic for as long as she had start to take hold. She finally let it relax. The illusion of more men than they had flickered out with a wink. She sighed heavily and pressed the sleeve of her blouse against her forehead. 

As soon as it was obvious she was the only one standing in the clearing, the HYDRA soldiers started shouting. One still had his pistol and went to draw it. He was dropped just as neatly as the first. Again, she could feel the draw of energy being pulled behind her and the jab Bucky used to make the gun fling itself out of the cage away from the prisoners.

Peggy knelt and started to brush out her circle. She couldn't use the Circle Salt again when it was mixed with dirt without contaminating her source. "Hey," Bucky said behind her, "I can..." She looked over her shoulder at him as he flicked his fingers. A line of Circle Salt pulled itself up out of the dirt as if it were a string. "I mean, I think you can use it again, right? I'm not as familiar as I should be with soul magics."

"Yes," she said, looking at the dancing string of salt gently floating vertically in the air in front of her. Her gaze slipped from it to his hand. His palm was up with his fingers all pressed together like he was holding something small. She could feel the tingle of him drawing a small bit of energy from around them to keep the salt where it was. She snapped out of her short stare and hurried to open her pouch of Circle Salt. He rotated his hand and the salt-string arced over and neatly deposited itself in the bag. When the last of it fell into a pile, she cinched the bag closed and looked up at him. He offered his hand down to her, and although she didn't need the help up, she took it. There was another explosion, this time so close that it blew the doors off the building and slammed them into the cage of HYDRA agents. Bucky grinned at her and rolled his eyes. She tucked her pouch into her belt and stepped beside him as the rest of the commandos exited the building. Jacques and Gabe had soot on their faces and clothes from being too close to a blast zone but the rest of them looked all right. Aside from Steve, they were all panting heavily.

Gabe looked at Jacques, who smiled, and then he shared the secret with the rest of them. "He's got one more rigged to set the whole base on fire. So we better round up these boys and get out of here."

"Did you find any intel inside?" Peggy asked.

Steve shook his head. "Nah, just the same orders the others had. Manufacture to the specifications and then ship them to the "main facility" but nothing about where that is."

She pursed her lips at the dissatisfying lack of intelligence. They would find the main facility eventually. They just needed to capture someone higher up the chain of command.

They collected the extra weapons and patted down each of the enemy soldiers for extras before forming up around them to walk back to their rendezvous where Phillip's regiment was located. Before the base was out of sight, Jacques turned and waited. The entire thing created a giant fireball in the sky that had him grinning and doing a little dance to himself. Steve glanced at Peggy and grinned. He then set a fast pace to get them back to camp as quickly as possible. It was typically a six-hour walk. If no one reined Steve in, he would probably push them to do it in less than three. The prisoners started to complain and moan about their aching feet before the Commandos did. By then, they were so close they just pushed through the pain.

Peggy was exceedingly happy when they arrived at camp to find full tents already set up for them. After making sure she wouldn't be needed for the rest of the evening, she retired to her small wall-tent to relax. If she was lucky, Steve might be able to slip away for a few moments too.

The winter snows melted, the spring flowers wilted, and the heat of summer had started to cool into autumn. At times, Peggy forgot that Bucky wasn't from their time. He picked up Steve and Dum Dum's slang, he started joining in on their good-natured ribbing and some of their bawdy talk, and he got even better at doing the job he'd been assigned.

There were only a few times they got to return to London as a reprieve. Those were the times Peggy remembered he was a man out of time. He always went back to the same pub. He'd sit at the bar and chat with the men and women there, but at the end of every evening, he would leave with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets, a tension in his frame that spoke of the beginnings of despair. He'd been in the Seeking Dream for almost a year.

Putting Bucky out of her mind was a difficult task these days. It wasn't that she was lusting after him or anything. No, what she and Steve shared wasn't comparable to anything—physically or emotionally—but she often found her thoughts drifting to Bucky all the same. The little things, how he always seemed careful about how he spoke to women. Respectful, even more so than Steve sometimes. He never seemed inclined to go off with any of the pickup girls that he spoke with, and though she watched him as surreptitiously as possible, he didn't go off with any men either.

In an effort to get the man out of her head, she made it her mission to sneak into Steve's room at the Red Cross Club. It took a few false starts and hiding around corners when she heard soldiers passing by, but eventually, she opened the door to his room, stepped in, and closed it behind her.

Steve was sitting on his bed reading but looked up when she entered the room. He raised his eyebrows and quirked his lips. "Peggy," he whispered, "what are you doing in here?"

She strutted towards him, slowly unbuttoning her blouse as she did. "What do you think I'm doing?"

With a grin on his face, he reached for her and worked at the buttons on her skirt. "Well, I have a lot of ideas about what we _could_ be doing..."

She brushed his hands away and shifted to straddle his lap on the bed. His book almost fell off the bed before he caught it. He gave her a look that said 'careful' and set it on the bedside table. Then he helped her by sliding her skirt higher up her thighs. His fingers played with the tops of her stockings, and he leaned forward just enough to kiss her lightly.

A light kiss just wouldn't do, and she pushed closer, deepening it. His hands gripped the back of her thighs and squeezed gently.

After a few moments, his hands started to wander again, moving higher. He went under her slip without hesitating and froze when his fingers caressed bare skin rather than her knickers. He grinned. "You're missing something here."

"Hmm, am I? I thought I was just being strategic."

He swallowed and she followed the movement with kisses down his throat. While he was content to explore her bare skin, Peggy worked on pushing his vest up. He leaned forward for her to pull it completely off, exposing his gorgeous chest to her gaze and wandering hands. She bent to kiss at his mark where it lay low between his pectoral muscles. It was red and round, with a tiny maze-like pattern that was as unique to them as their fingerprints. Sometimes, she got the fanciful idea to have him draw the pattern so they could hang it on the wall in their future home. It'd have to be in their bedroom, for only them to see, of course, but the tabboo idea delighted her all the same.

She moaned quietly when he finally did more than just lightly caress her skin, and soon enough they were rearranging themselves so he could open the fly on his trousers and push down his shorts.

The door behind them opened.

Both of them froze. Most of their clothes were still on—it was habit by now to leave them on, just in case, but that didn't change the fact that what they were doing was very obvious.

"Ah, shit," Bucky said. "I'm, umm, dammit. Sorry, I'll just..."

And then Peggy's mouth said something without her brain being engaged. "Stay." She turned to look at him over her shoulder to see he'd shut the door, but one hand was still on the knob. The other was covering his eyes. She could still see his eyebrows; they were pulled together in confusion.

Peggy didn't know why she'd said it. Some combination of pity and respect and admiration for who he was and what his life was like. There was also something about him, something tender and real, that reminded her of Steve. He really was searching for his soulmate and not just a good time with anybody who offered. If she wasn't already soulmates with Steve, she could imagine she would have felt a connection with Bucky too. Maybe that's why she'd said it.

"Uh, what?" he asked.

"You heard her," Steve said, "stay." She turned back to face him but if there'd been a moment of questioning he'd moved past it. "Come over here and join us," he added though his gaze never left Peggy's. She nodded.

Bucky hesitated, and Peggy glanced back over her shoulder. He swallowed nervously but moved towards them. As he got close, his gaze traveled up and down her body and then Steve's. When he caught sight of Steve's soulmark, he glanced away. Peggy thought his cheeks might have gone a little pink. She reached out and caught his jacket. She didn't have to tug hard to have him take the last step towards the bed. She tipped her head up and pressed her mouth to his. 

He was a good kisser, which surprised her. For some reason, she'd assumed that he'd be inexperienced. Beneath her, Steve resumed what they'd been doing, though now only one of his hands was roaming her skin. With his other hand, he'd reached out and held Bucky's hip.

Peggy pulled away from Bucky's clever mouth so she could focus on unbuttoning his jacket and shirt. Now that she was letting herself want, she wanted to see what was hidden underneath his uniform. Was he as fit as he looked?

She got his jacket and shirt unfastened and pushed them off of his shoulders, but before she could reach for his vest, Steve reached up and pulled him down for a taste. Peggy hadn't thought that far ahead, hadn't thought at all, really. She'd just assumed they would both focus on her. She watched with desirous, heavy-lidded eyes as their kiss went from tentative, to heated, to filthy. She bit her lip and moaned.

They pulled apart to look at her; neither looked ashamed. She hadn't known Steve had those sort of proclivities and one part of her mind might have balked at their display. The other part of her mind reveled in the idea of these two beautiful men together. She renewed her efforts to remove more of Bucky's clothes, but he stopped her before she got his vest pushed up so she could see his chest.

"I'm... I..." His hand had caught the cloth just before it uncovered his sternum—that's right, he'd said that in the future all soulmarks were visible. If that were the case, then why would he be nervous about showing it?

"What's wrong?" Steve asked.

Bucky glanced at him and swayed a little, letting himself rest more against the edge of the bed. "I'm just a little self-conscious about it, that's all."

"You don't have to show us," Steve reassured him.

Bucky met his gaze but then let his slip down to focus on Steve's soulmark. He nodded to himself—perhaps gathering his courage—leaned back and removed his vest.

Peggy couldn't help but stare. Seeing someone's soulmark was the epitome of intimacy. Society would say only one person should ever see it, that person being your soulmate. She reached out to touch but diverted her hand at the last moment, letting her fingers tickle down his tight abdomen instead. His mark was similar to hers and Steve's, as all marks were. Round, maze-like and on the tender skin of his lower sternum. Yet unlike hers and Steve's, his was a different color.

"Did you get hit with something, Buck? You're bruised," Steve said. He did reach out and touch, though it looked feather light in case Bucky's skin was tender.

Bucky shook his head. "No, it's just... purple. It's classified as unusual. They say people with unusual marks are rarely Accepted by their soulmates."

"Oh, Bucky," Peggy said. She leaned forward and pressed her lips gently to the different mark. No wonder he'd seemed so despondent about finding his soulmate to help him wake up and go home. If Acceptance were required to wake from the Seeking Dream, it may never happen for him. How horrible to have that weighing on his shoulders every time he went to the pub looking for the connection he'd missed almost a year ago.

She cupped the back of his head and brought him close for another kiss, desperate to impart some of the hope and tender fondness she felt for him through the physical connection. Steve too, reached for him, and soon they'd rearranged themselves on the bed again. She may not be able to give him Acceptance, but she wasn't going to let him be lonely. Steve seemed to have similar ideas.

Dawn was only an hour away when Peggy and Bucky crept out of Steve's room to return to their own.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky wasn't particularly fond of the plan. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to zipline onto a train traveling at full throttle? Much less as that train also ran alongside a river gorge in the Austrian Alps that was so deep, Bucky got dizzy if he tried to look down at the river. Not to mention the swirling snow and biting wind.

At least the wind he could do something about. It didn't take much concentration to keep a circle of Kinetic energy moving around their squad to keep the wind from slipping through the stitching of their clothes. He wouldn't be able to keep it up when they split up, though.

With the speed of the train, only three of them were likely to make it onto the train before it got out from under the zipline. Steve was the obvious first choice, because, well, he was a super soldier. The rest of them had debated about it while they waited for the train, but it was finally decided that Bucky and Peggy would be the other two. He figured he was picked because he'd shown he was good in a firefight, and he was adept at using Kinetics in conjunction with it. He wasn't sure why Peggy was selected over Jacques or even Gabe, but that was the decision, and there wasn't any time left to argue about it.

They could hear the train coming, eating up the track. He was anxious; he wasn't scared of heights, but the combination of full speed train and deep snowy ravine didn't put him at ease either. He trusted Jacques when he waved Steve forward. Then Peggy. Then him. The zipline was exhilarating and for a brief second, he thought the entire adrenaline-packed thing was worth it, but then he had to drop onto the train. He watched Peggy drop ahead of him. She wobbled a little but caught her balance. He let go and landed on the train.

Now, all he had to do was keep an eye out while Steve and Peggy infiltrated the train. Their mission was to overtake the train and capture the scientist Zola. Bucky thought about trying to keep his little circle of energy around him to keep the biting wind at bay, but with the motion of the train, it would have been too much of a distraction. He gritted his teeth against the cold instead.

The waiting was like it always was, both boring and stressful, only now it was also cold and more perilous. The train rocked as it sped down the tracks, and it made him nervous. One wrong step and he could slip off the train and plummet into the ravine. No amount of Kinetic energy could stop a person from falling. Up ahead, he could see a tunnel, and he crouched low. He wasn't sure how much clearance there would be on the top of the train. He may have to lay down completely as they went through it. Just the thought of being trapped flat on his stomach in the dark on top of a speeding train had anxiety creeping up his spine. He tightened his grip on his rifle.

The train car in front of his vibrated and then ripped open, peeling back like a can of meat in a C-ration.

"PEGGY!" Steve screamed, and the sound of it pierced through the roar of the train and the whipping wind.

Bucky's breath caught in his throat. He could see Peggy's legs dangling just past the end of the ripped portion of the metal car. He reacted as quickly as possible, sucking so much energy out of the environment that the train actually started to slow on the tracks. He wrapped it around the metal hanging out over the ravine to draw it back towards the opening, but it was too heavy. The ripped metal shook as the train bounced on the tracks.

Steve's shout of "NO!" blended with Peggy's scream as she lost her grip.

Bucky could only watch, horrified, even as he scrambled to do something with his useless magic. He channeled as much wind and snow under her as he could, but wind and snowflakes couldn't stop a falling body. He could hear the train screeching across the rails as he sucked up more energy, but she was out of sight, out of range. He slammed his hands against the top of the train car and screamed his rage. He'd gathered so much energy that the train car crushed underneath him as if it'd been made of aluminum. There was a second crunching sound, and blackness swallowed him up as the train reaccelerated and started into the tunnel.

He gasped for breath. Oh shit, Steve's soulmate had just... "No, don't think about it," he told himself. He swallowed down his own tears, tears he hadn't even realized he'd started to shed. Light flooded his vision as the train exited the tunnel. He could see where the peeled back section of metal where Peggy had clung had been ripped off as they'd plowed through the tunnel. Horror filled his stomach. It tasted like bile on the back of his tongue.

He had to get to Steve.

He climbed out of the severe dent he'd made in the train car and moved forward across the next. He found Steve in the open train car, sitting on his ass staring dejectedly out the rip in the side. He had tears sliding down his cheeks unheeded, and his knuckles were bloody. Bucky found the body of a HYDRA Agent, what was left of his face evidence of what happened to Steve's hands; Bucky didn't blame him. "Come on," he said, crouching down next to Steve. "We've got to get Zola."

"Bucky." His voice was strained with emotion, and Bucky had to blink back more tears when he heard it. "I couldn't reach her. She slipped right out of my hands." He sobbed as he looked down at his hands. Bucky wasn't sure if he even noticed the blood that was clinging to them.

"All right. You sit here and..." Bucky trailed off. He didn't know if Steve would even try to fight off another HYDRA agent if they came through. He hoped he would. "I'll get Zola."

They were sent back to London after the mission.

After the mission was finally over, Bucky slipped into a haze. He did most things on autopilot, answering questions from Brass or going to the mess. Any time he tried to think, his mind felt heavy and honey-thick as if he was trying to wade through gooey sludge. At one point, the sirens for an air raid went off, and he didn't even bother getting off of his bunk until someone knocked on his door. He followed them down to the shelter in the basement.

"If I didn't know any better," Jim said quietly beside him, "I'd have thought you and Peggy were soulmates. You've been acting the same way Steve has."

Gabe heard him and glanced around. "Hope he found a shelter elsewhere," he said.

Bucky too, roused himself out of his thoughts enough to look around. Steve wasn't there with them. Several thoughts surfaced in that slow sticky way his brain was working lately. The first was maybe Steve was hoping to play Russian Roulette with a _Luftwaffe_ bomb. The second was that maybe Bucky should head up the stairs and join him. He didn't act on it, knowing that the rest of the Commandos weren't going to let him just leave while they could hear strafing and bombs falling.

When the droning of the planes had quieted, but before the all-clear sirens, Bucky stood.

"Where are you going?" Monty asked.

"To find Steve," was his answer. It must have satisfied because they didn't stop him as he weaved around the groups of soldiers in the basement and headed up the stairs.

He didn't have to look very far. Bucky's steps often took him to the same bar where he'd fallen into the past, and this time it was no different. The closer he got, the more his thoughts seemed to loosen up. He wasn't thinking clearly by any means, but it was better than it had been before. Dread started to fill him when he saw the bombed-out husk of the once thriving Whip & Fiddle. He swallowed, feeling the scratch of a dry throat. If he was meant to find his soulmate in that bar, then the time was up on that front. He stuffed his hands into his pockets as he walked the last half a dozen yards to what had been the door. He stepped through the hole in the wall to look around. The slight shuffle of a bottle on a table seemed loud in the ruined building; he ventured further in.

Steve was sitting at the only upturned table in the joint with a bottle of cheap whiskey and a glass. He didn't look up as Bucky approached. He just poured another two fingers. "Doctor Erskine—the doctor that created the serum that made me what I am—he said it wouldn't just affect my muscles. It would affect my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing which means I..." he held up the glass to show off the amber liquid inside. "I can't get drunk."

Bucky wasn't sure what to say to that. He'd got drunk many times during his first year or two of college, despite being underage. He always seemed to hate himself in the morning afterward. He could relate to the desire to lose one's senses, though. In a way, his mind had done that for him in the last few days. An involuntary reaction to losing someone he... he loved.

He had loved Peggy. She might not have been his soulmate but he'd still come to care deeply for her. Steve too. And if the pain was this bad for him, how was it for Steve? He'd mentioned that the serum had augmented everything about him. Everything about him was more, including his emotions and how he perceived them. Losing one's soulmate was bad enough. Losing them and feeling that heartache with four times the acuity?

Steve was a better man than Bucky to withstand it and not think about putting himself out of his misery.

"It's not your fault, Steve," he finally said. He bent and pulled a chair upright to sit in across the table from him.

"You were there. You saw. She was so close, and I still couldn't get to her in time." He poured another glass, all the way to the top, and slid it across the table to Bucky. It sloshed over the edge and spilled onto the wood. He tipped the bottle up and finished off what was left. "I'm going after Schmidt. I'm not going to stop until all of HYDRA is dead or captured."

"_We're_ going after him."

Steve finally met Bucky's gaze. His eyes were red and swollen, but he didn't seem ashamed from having cried. Bucky envied him that. He couldn't bring himself to cry despite everything inside him wanting to. Peggy hadn't been his soulmate; he didn't have the right.

Steve must have seen some emotion in Bucky's eyes, something that echoed his sentiment regarding HYDRA. He nodded.

Bucky watched through his scope from his hiding spot as Steve drove right up to the front door of the damned HYDRA facility to let himself get caught. Dum Dum, Gabe, and Monty were on the ziplines he and Jacques had worked in conjunction to hang, just waiting for the right moment. He couldn't help admiring the ruthless efficiency Steve used in taking out all of the motorcycles that sped after him. Or the multitude of agents he took down before they surrounded him. They used flamethrowers, and Bucky found himself drawing up energy to flare them back onto the attackers before Jacques hissed at him to stop. Bucky forced himself to breathe through the fear and anger. He released the energy slowly back into the environment.

Finally, Steve was escorted into the facility. Bucky, Jim, Jacques, and Colonel Philips's Regiment crept closer. The four Illusionists among them worked together to hide their movement from the enemy.

Dum Dum's ridiculous war-cry of "Wahoo!" came through the crackly radio headset Jim was wearing. It was the signal. Jim whistled low, and the Illusionists dropped their Illusions at the same time the regiment was told to fire. They were so close that many of the men's first shots were in point blank range.

Bucky, Jim, and Jacques spearheaded the ground attack. They made an efficient team, blasting their way in. They caught sight of Steve and followed him, letting the regiment spread out behind them. Bucky saw Steve dart to the side before another goon with a flamethrower blocked the hallway. Jacques had no problem when Bucky pulled in energy this time. The agent screamed when the flames wrapped around him instead of where he'd aimed them. Bucky shot him as a mercy and followed after Steve.

Steve paused long enough to give Bucky a sloppy salute before going after the Red Skull. No matter how quick Bucky was, he always felt like he was two steps behind him. He supposed that made sense. Bucky wasn't some enhanced super soldier.

They ended up in a hangar with dozens of HYDRA agents blocking the enormous plane as it was taking off. Steve had made it past them and was almost at the plane. Bucky knew he wouldn't be able to catch up to him, so he focused his rifle on the bad guys.

He could feel magical energy being sucked through the air to a mage in the far corner of the facility floor. Jim shouted from nearby, and Bucky saw him shooting a HYDRA goon that wouldn't die. The goon stood back up despite his wounds and rushed Jim with a blank look on his face and a knife in his hand. More previously-dead goons were getting back up from the ground to attack.

Bucky rushed toward the mage, knowing whatever he was doing was the cause. He could see the fella standing in a circle of salt but still felt the draw of energy from outside of it too. Another dead body got back up nearby. It turned and looked at him with blank eyes then started stumbling toward him.

Bucky had only ever read about Necromancy—the combination of soul and corporeal magics—before. It was even more taboo than soul magics. It was obviously the source for Romero's '60s flick. The dead were slow and uncoordinated, but they kept coming until they overwhelmed the living. The first ones created seemed more stable, capable of using a knife or their sidearm, but it seemed the Necromancer was compromising quality for quantity in the later zombies.

Bucky drew the little energy from around him that the Necromancer wasn't pulling in and sent a sharp spike of it at the circle of salt at the mage's feet. The salt blew away, scattering grains against the walls. Underneath the salt was another circle drawn in chalk. Bucky remembered reading how chalk had been an often used substitute for Circle Salt as it was more difficult to break and offered more protection.

Two more dead bodies joined the first to lumber after him, and Bucky had to run to get out of reach of them. Instead of running away, like he supposed the mage was expecting, Bucky ran towards him. He knew not to touch the man in the circle without breaking the circle first as that could be potentially fatal for both of them. When he was within a few feet of the Necromancer, Bucky dropped and slid across the floor like a baseball player sliding home. His pants brushed through the chalk line, breaking it. Inertia caused him to slide right into the mage and knock him off his feet. The mage screamed in pain from the forceful breaking of the circle. Without getting up, Bucky pulled his sidearm and shot the Necromancer in the chest.

All the zombies attacking the living soldiers collapsed.

When Bucky looked back up, Steve and the giant plane were both out of sight. Jacques waved him over, and he got to his feet and followed. Jim and Colonel Phillips had found the communications room. "It's Steve," Jim said, "He's asking for you." The three men stepped back, giving him room. Bucky sat down at the radio.

"Steve? What's going on? Are you okay?"

"Bucky." His voice was a little difficult to make out, the cracks and pops and what sounded like wind noise almost drowned him out. "Bucky, I'm sorry."

"Steve, what are you talking about?"

"I didn't think..." the radio cut out for a second before it clicked back on. "The plane's on autopilot, and it's getting close to New York. I've got to put it in the water."

Words caught in Bucky's throat. Was it time already? He'd known—growing up in Brooklyn, how could he not?—that Captain America died in a plane crash saving the Eastern seaboard. But he'd somehow forgotten. Steve was just Steve to him. Or may he thought things had changed with his presence there, or how things went with Peggy. Finally, grasping at the best answer he could think of, he said, "You don't have to go down with it, Steve."

"I think I do. Just... know that I'm sorry, Bucky, okay? If Peggy hadn't... " The radio cut out.

"Steve!" Bucky shouted, standing up. "Steve, wait!"


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky woke up with a start, inhaling sharply like he was about to call out to someone again. To Steve again. He was disoriented. He sat up; he was back in his dorm. He looked behind him at the circle of salt and his folded up towel for a pillow. He could easily see where the circle had been broken to the right of where his head had been. There was even a paw print where Oscar had stepped in the salt and disturbed it.

How long had he been laying there? He'd been in the past for months. Over a year, actually. He checked his wrist to check the time on his watch, only to remember that in his real life—his future life—he'd never worn one. He fumbled for his cell phone. It felt entirely too delicate in his hands like the smallest touch would break it. It took him a few more moments before he remembered what the date was supposed to be. It was the same, only half an hour seemed to have passed since he took those photographs on his screen.

He stood up, feeling mechanical and stiff in a way that had nothing to do with sleeping on the ground in Germany or aching muscles from a long march through part of France. He cleaned up the salt, sweeping it up into a dustpan and dumping it into the trash can. He put the towel away.

When he was alone in his room, he sat on his bed. It was fluffy underneath him, and he wondered how he could sleep on something so soft. He felt like he was sinking. 

He sat there, letting his thoughts wander and spiral, until it suddenly dawned on him. He was only back in the future because his soulmate had died. "Oh god," he muttered. He fell back onto the bed completely and ran his hands through his hair—it felt too long now, way past regulation. As that final thought formed up in his head—his soulmate was dead—his phone made a horrendously loud and obnoxious noise. It startled him, and he picked it up, dropped it because it vibrated, and picked it up again. He finally remembered the correct way to work it only to see a string of text messages from Abby.

_-You done?  
-You never texted back.  
-How'd it go?  
-Are you feeling any more confident now? Your soulmate's out there._

The phone felt awkward in his hands, but he managed to text back.

_-I'm still reeling._

_-Tell me about what happened? What scenario did you see? In mine, I met her at a pool party._

He didn't know what to say. He'd obviously done something wrong, he'd known that a year ago; Peggy had deduced so immediately.

Peggy.

There were just too many things running through his head. If his soulmate had been Steve, then how come Steve's soulmate was Peggy? What did that mean? Did people have multiple possibilities for soulmates? His soulmate couldn't have been Peggy, as much as he'd thought he might have had a connection with her—maybe she was just an amazing dame—because otherwise, he would have woken up when she'd fallen off the train.

God, it hurt to think about both of them. Now. Still. His sense of time was SNAFU.

His phone buzzed again, that awful grating sound—he was going to have to remember how to change that—to see another message from Abby. _I don't want to talk about it_, he texted. Hoping that would be the end of it.

_-be ready to talk about it tomorrow at work_

He didn't think he would be ready, but that would give him some time to come up with an excuse at least.

Bucky had classes the next day, and they dragged by. He knew the semester was just beginning but he felt absolutely lost in every subject. Thankfully, memories of being on campus for four years helped him navigate where his classes were. He forgot his laptop was even in his bag and took notes by hand.

When he walked into the lecture hall for Dr. Levine's _Soulmarks_ course, he'd finally remembered about his laptop. There was a granola bar in the bottom, smushed and crumbly, probably from the previous semester, and he grabbed that too. He shoved it in his mouth and ate it dry, thinking it was too sweet compared to the usual rations he'd been living on.

Levine started the lesson with a slide projector showing a photograph of a purple soulmark on a woman's chest. It was zoomed in enough to not show much of her breasts, but there were still a few snickers from higher up the lecture hall. While Levine was pointing out the structure of the mark—the individual maze rings, the particular shape—Bucky's thoughts slipped to Peggy. Hers were the only breasts he'd seen and touched in a while. Of course, thoughts of her spiraled down into thoughts about her death—and Steve—and Steve's death.

He should visit the library. See if any of those newsreels survived. He wanted to see them, of course, and he hoped seeing them would help ease the pain in his chest, but he also wanted to know if it had been real. Had his time in the past meant anything? Had he really killed all those Krauts? Had things happened as he'd experienced?

His thoughts snapped back onto Levine's lesson when he said, "The most common name for purple soulmarks is doubled because it really does look like two marks overlapping completely. Doubled marks are the easiest to remember. Double the marks, double the soulmates. People with doubled marks are most likely going to be part of a triadic soulbond. That is three people who all share the same mark. Not to be confused with polyamorous—which in this context is one person having two soulmates who aren't soulmates with each other. Triadic Bonds are closed polyamory.

Now, if anyone's paying attention, you'll remember that this class is about Unaccepted Bonds. Triadic Bonds are almost never Accepted because of two main reasons. The first is the same reason normal Bonds go Unaccepted. People just never find their soulmate. They don't recognize a soulmate connection, they live on opposite sides of the planet, they take the wrong class or simply miss each other like two trains passing in the night. The second reason this particular Bond is Unaccepted is because the people with these Bonds typically only believe in monogamy. Whether that's a societal issue or not, you'll study in your Sociology classes, I'm sure, but for whatever reason, they don't think a triadic relationship would be stable. Someone would feel left out, _et cetera_. 

Before, when soulmarks weren't visible, it was possible to not even know there was a third soulmate as marks only appeared with Acceptance, and then only doubled with a second Acceptance.

We know this is the case because..."

He continued on, but Bucky was too dumbstruck to follow the rest of the lecture.

At work, Bucky was still a step out of sync with everything. He dove into work, even offering to work the counter—which he typically hated—to keep away from Abby's incoming interrogation. He wasn't feeling the work and did things out of order and accidentally overcharged a customer. He stared blankly in front of him as she yelled at him and only when she slammed the door on her way out did he realize he'd fallen into parade rest.

Abby didn't seem fazed by his attempts to avoid her. She took her fifteen-minute break at the same time he took his. Donovan started complaining about it as soon as they walked through the kitchen to the breakroom. "Quit your bellyaching," Bucky said to him as he passed by. He'd meant for it to come out playful, but Donovan frowned and threw the wet towel he'd been using to clean the counters at him.

"You shut up too, asshole."

Bucky dipped his head, frustrated that he'd said the wrong thing and made his friend angry. He flopped into a chair at the closest table. He scrubbed his hands across his face then reached up to pull on his hair a little. "God, I need a cigarette and a crumb-up."

"You what?" Abby asked, squaring up in front of him. "You don't smoke," she added. "Are you all right, Bucky?"

Instead of answering immediately, he thought about it. Thought about how his soulmate—soulmates, plural, because now he was almost positive that both Peggy and Steve had been his—were dead and how nothing made sense anymore. He shook his head. "No. No, I don't think I am."

Her determined expression and squared shoulders, set for extracting gossip, softened. "What's wrong, Bucky?"

"That Seeking Dream fucked me up."

Her eyebrows pulled together, and she reached out and touched his arm. "I know I've been pestering you about it, but if you want we could like, discuss what you experienced or something? It was just supposed to be a fun little slumber party game."

Bucky exhaled through his nose but bit his tongue when he thought about saying more. Over a year in a warzone fighting for his life and never knowing for certain if he'd ever wake up wasn't some party game. He shook his head. She wouldn't understand unless he explained it, but it all felt too personal—the edges of his soul felt too raw and ragged—to share. "I think I just need to put it behind me. Forget about it and focus on my classes."

Although he could see she really wanted to know what he'd seen, she dropped the topic.

At the end of his break, he made sure to apologize to Donovan who accepted it with his usual steadfast grace.

No matter how hard he tried, Bucky couldn't put it behind him, however. The cravings for a cigarette eased, the '40s era lingo slowly dropped away, and the feeling of being out of sync with the world dissipated eventually. He thought about dropping the _Soulmarks _class. Thought about dropping out of college completely. His enthusiasm for engineering had waned entirely.

When he could get away with it, Bucky delved into the library stacks, immersing himself in everything Captain America. He found an enormous amount of propaganda but very little in the way of actual concrete information. What he did find of the Commandos' missions and movements during the war lined up with what he remembered of the path they took during '44 when he was with them. There was absolutely no mention of Arnim Zola, the mission in the Alps, or Peggy. Nothing about Steve Rogers having a soulmate. There were short interviews conducted after the war for a Captain America documentary, but none of them mentioned Bucky or Peggy. He didn't know if that meant he hadn't actually been there or if information about the SSR was still classified.

All of it made him more frustrated and depressed. Had he made all of it up? Had the Seeking Dream taken all the information he had in his head about Captain America from his history classes and conjured some fake scenario? Had any of it been real?

With six weeks left of courses, Bucky happened to walk by an Army recruitment kiosk set up in the student union. He was planning to ignore it, but then someone at the table called out, "Hey Private!"

Bucky glanced around, saw no one else, deduced they were speaking to him, and then corrected him, "Sargeant."

The recruitment officer shrugged his shoulders and said, "Come on, you want to aim higher than an E-5, don't you?"

Bucky had said the word without really thinking about it, but he stopped and approached the guy anyway. He looked through the pamphlets and listened to the spiel about freedom, pride, and defending one's country. Bucky wasn't listening so much as he was thinking. Ever since he woke up from the Seeking Dream, he'd been feeling unmoored. He didn't know what he was going to do with his engineering degree when he graduated. The plan he'd laid out for himself when he decided on it felt ridiculous, unattainable, and boring. At least in the military, he would have a purpose, right? Finally, he glanced back up at the guy and nodded. "I'm interested."

The recruitment officer gestured him to a seat behind the kiosk so they could talk privately and conduct the first interview. A lot of it was basic stuff—medical history, plans for the future, things like that. Near the end of the process, as he was gathering up all the paper for the packet he was compiling he asked, "Are you actively looking for your soulmate?"

The question gave Bucky pause. Weeks ago, at the beginning of the semester, he would have said yes. Now he shook his head. "Nah. Looking for a soulmate is pointless, they could have been born ninety years ago, and you'd never really know." It wasn't completely true—his soulmark wasn't creased or halved which were the sorts of unusual marks that meant there was a large age gap or your soulmate was deceased before you were born—but the distinction wasn't that great in Bucky's mind. Whatever the case, his soulmates were dead. The recruiter nodded like he understood the sentiment and handed over the paperwork. 

That night over the phone, Bucky told his mom about his decision to join the Army.

"But, what about your degree?" Winifred asked, worry in her voice. Bucky could hear the sizzle of dinner cooking through the line.

"I'll still finish my degree. I'm scheduled for MEPS in two months. I'll be done by then. Even so, they've got this Delayed Entry Program if I wasn't."

"Will you still be walking across the stage?"

Bucky chuckled and flopped onto his bed. "Of course, Mom."

"Well, you know how important it is to us. You're the first one in the family to go."

"You've got three more chances to pay for it too," he teased. "How are the girls?"

He heard a spoon scrape across a pot. "Your sisters are fine. Becca got first place in the science fair. I honestly don't know where you all get your brains from, you're all just so smart."

Bucky hummed and let his mom carry the rest of the conversation. He missed his parents and his sisters. He should make it a point to spend time with them before he had to go to MEPS.

Six weeks later, Bucky finished his last days of classes. After the graduation ceremony, his parents helped him move his things out of his dorm and back home. A week after that, he went back into the city for MEPS.

On the first day, he took the ASVAB, which he felt he did a good job on. There was also some general magic exams so the Army could test his competence with different types of magic. On the second day, after the hearing and vision testing, the physical, the exercise, and endurance testing, they called him into a room by himself and told him to wait.

They didn't explain why but he had a book, so he read to pass the time. Finally, after half an hour, the door opened, and two people walked in. A blond man, probably in his mid-to-late thirties, and a redheaded woman with a torpedo figure. Neither were wearing uniforms. They pulled two chairs around and sat across from him.

"Is there something wrong?" Bucky asked them, closing his book and setting it in the empty chair beside him.

The man made a face, pressing his lips together in thought before shaking his head. "I'm not sure. See, we're with an organization called SHIELD. Its predecessor, so to speak, has records of a man with your name, birthday, specs—hell even your weight—already on file."

Bucky could feel an odd tension starting to gather under his skin. He sat up straighter. The woman's watchful eyes narrowed.

"He just happened to... disappear from service some time ago," the man continued. "So, I guess the question is... have you moved in time recently?"

Maybe Bucky's time in the past hadn't been as unreal as he'd convinced himself it had been. He inhaled slowly, hoping they couldn't read the shock he was feeling. "So SHIELD's predecessor..." he said, "That wouldn't happen to be the SSR, would it?"

The man smiled and looked at the woman. She minutely raised an eyebrow and gave the smallest of nods.


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky was thankful this was happening here on the viaduct where the air whipped around the buildings and in and under the road. He had plenty to work with.

He flung his hand up, releasing the energy he'd been collecting and caused a gust of high-powered air to shoot up above him. It knocked two of the alien pods vertical. The report of Natasha's pistols added to the cacophony echoing off the buildings, and the six aliens and two flying craft fell to the road below.

Bucky didn't waste any time and shot the next closest alien targets, all the while drawing energy from the world around him.

Clint's arrows whizzed past his head and combined with the bullets from Bucky's rifle, dropped the alien that was approaching on the left.

When no more of the hulking gray creatures came from that direction, Bucky turned. Clint and Natasha were taking a breather as well.

"Why are you in plain clothes, Barnes?" Natasha asked. As she took a few steps towards him, he could feel the slow-moving vortex of energy that she was drawing. It was a technique she'd taught him as well. In the heat of battle—always be siphoning energy because you never knew when you would need it next. The technique had saved his neck more than once.

"I'm on vacation," he answered, grinning at her even as he let his eyes rove the road and buildings behind her looking for enemies—she was doing the same for the area behind him and Clint. "I was helping my sister move out of her dorm." A quick glance at her and Clint show them in typical black SHIELD-gear. Compared to their light combat armor, he was practically naked in a tee-shirt and jeans. "There some kind of emergency or something?"

Clint snickered and said, "Nah, nothing major or anything. You can go back to moving furniture."

"Right, I'll just be going then—"

"Incoming," Clint said, putting an end to the banter. His stance shifted, and it gave a direction to which way the enemy was approaching. Bucky whirled around, rifle already butted against his shoulder. The three of them fell into a rhythm. Shoot, breathe, pivot, shoot, breathe, duck. Repeat. They took down the enemy, but the enemy kept coming. The aliens were humanoid in their limbs and movement which made anticipating their position easier, but they were fast, and their weapons were explosive and harder to evade.

There was movement in Bucky's periphery—someone in a bright blue uniform somersaulting into the mix. The first thing Bucky saw when he looked over properly was the red, white, and blue shield. His throat seized up, and he missed the next beat of his rhythm. When he took the next shot at the alien behind the man in blue, it went wide because it was on an inhale rather than an exhale. Clint's arrow took the alien out instead.

The man was wearing a cowl that obscured his face but Bucky knew those blue eyes and that jaw, saw them often in his dreams no matter how little he slept or how many pills he took. "Steve?" he asked.

Captain America's eyes focused on him, but there wasn't any recognition in them. "You need to get off the streets, head down to the subway. It'll be safer down there," he said before turning and addressing Natasha and Clint.

Bucky was somewhere between dumbstruck and irked. For one, he'd been mistaken for a civilian despite the rifle in his hands. For another, for a split second, he'd mistaken whoever they had dressed up as Captain America for Steve despite knowing that Steve was dead. He shook his head to banish the thought and turned away from the others to watch the perimeter while the fake Captain gave orders. Even his voice sounded the same. Whoever this guy was, he was a damn good actor at least.

Without waiting for orders, Bucky picked a building and jogged towards it. He'd do well with a height advantage, especially if the team was working towards containment. By the time he got to the top of the building, hell had well and truly broken loose on the ground. There was a giant armored whale-like creature dead on the road under the viaduct, and three more had flown out of the damn hole in the sky. Even more of the chariot pods were swarming down and spreading out, and Bucky settled into his rhythm without trouble. He found taking out the charioteer disabled the pods, and while the aliens seemed to be more durable, they didn't always land on their feet when abruptly falling. The chariots didn't maneuver well with high winds either. Up here he didn't have to compete with Natasha for energy or wind to manipulate.

From his vantage point, Bucky could see where Clint was on another rooftop farther up the street. As he was on the next breath of his rhythm, the Chrysler Building was struck by lightning, or rather, something electrified it, and the lightning struck the portal in the sky. It destroyed quite a few of the incoming chariots and one of the giant flying whales. He briefly wondered how powerful the mage was to gather and direct that amount of energy. He would have added to it had he been close enough. As it was, Bucky just continued his self-directed mission of shooting and flipping as many chariots out of the sky that came in range as he could.

He paused with his finger on the trigger when he saw one chariot swerving wildly. It took less than a second to realize why. Natasha was crouched on the back of the alien driver, steering with its dead body.

"How the hell did she even get up there?" he mumbled to himself before protecting her back against other chariots. He wished he had a comms device to check in with his team, but all he'd had in the back of his truck was his rifle and half a dozen magazines. He was dangerously close to exhausting his supply, too.

Alien blasts lit up the rooftop Clint was standing on. Bucky saw him leap off the edge of the building and shoot his last arrow as a grappling hook. He swung towards the windows several stories down. Bucky knew the upper floors of a skyscraper would be hard to break with a gust of wind, even a magically-enhanced gust, so he shot the glass out instead so Clint wouldn't have to crash through a window. Clint went through the opening as glass shattered all around him. The inside of the building was dark, and Bucky couldn't see what happened to his teammate after that. Again, he wished for his damn comms. He put the thought behind him by telling himself that Clint was a tough son of a bitch and could take care of himself.

A swarm of chariots swooped overhead and then doubled back to start strafing his area. He took out as many of the chariots as he could but didn't seem to make a dent in their numbers. Behind them, he could see one of those flying whales turn and head in his direction as well.

The bolt on his rifle locked back. He didn't need to look down to know he was out of magazines, out of ammo. He swore under his breath and dropped his rifle so he could use both hands to direct energy at the enemies. The fire from their blasters didn't react like normal fire or else he would have used it to cause their weapons to backfire. He gritted his teeth when a blast skimmed his shoulder, burning through his tee-shirt. A second one hit his ankle, the heat of the burn lingered in the denim. It was time for a tactical retreat.

He ran for the rooftop access door. He flung it open, turned to pull it closed behind him, and both he and the door were blasted inward, followed by the sound of collapsing concrete as part of the building was demolished.

Clint was in the lobby of the unstable building when Bucky finally stumbled his way out of the stairwell on the ground floor. "You all right, kid?" he asked. He had a nasty looking gash on his temple, but it looked like the bleeding had stopped.

Bucky shuffled closer, his left arm held stationary against his body with his right hand on his wrist. "Yeah, I'm all right. Dislocated shoulder, some minor burns, lost my rifle. You know, a regular day in the office."

Clint snorted in amusement. "What happened?"

"Fell down a couple flights of stairs. Did we win?"

He nodded. "Yeah, we won, ya klutz. Come on, Stark's getting us a celebratory meal of shawarma, and there are some people you need to meet."

Bucky made a face.

"That's a first. I don't think I've ever seen you turn down food, especially if someone else is buying. What's the deal?" Clint gestured towards the outside, and they started walking towards the cracked glass front door.

"It's not the food."

"So it's the people." Clint opened the door, exited the building, and turned to hold the door for Bucky. "Who?"

"I'm just not up for meeting an idiot who thinks blue tights are the best thing to wear for a combat mission. And he couldn't ID me as a combatant."

"Ooh, harsh. That rankled, huh? He's not so bad. A little old fashioned maybe." Clint kept the pace casual as he led the way past dead aliens and building rubble in the streets. "You know, I don't always understand you. At your age, I was eager to meet just about anyone in case I came across my soulmate, but you? You don't. It's like you don't believe you've got one. But I know you do, I've seen your mark."

Bucky would have felt exposed and vulnerable if he didn't trust Clint so much. "You have?"

Clint shrugged. "It's photographed with your intake papers. For identification purposes. So what's up with that? Why are you so sure you're never going to meet your soulmate?"

"It's classified," Bucky said. He could feel his friendly expression shift into a frown even as he said it. The entire topic of soulmates made his chest ache and his demeanor sour. Natasha had learned early not to bring it up, but this was the first time Clint had even mentioned it. "Did you meet yours, then? On a mission?"

"I've got a higher clearance than you," he retorted, but then he paused and looked at the closed door of the storefront in front of them. It seemed Bucky was going to be joining the team for an after-mission meal after all. Clint looked over at Bucky, and his sharp eyes had gone soft, and a smile flitted across his lips. "Yeah. I did meet mine. But that _is_ classified." He pulled the door open to let Bucky walk through. "You shouldn't give up, you know. You're too young to give up hope." He changed the subject. "We'll get some ice for your shoulder before we set it."

Bucky felt like there was a knot in his stomach as he entered the restaurant ahead of Clint. It wasn't that he didn't like meeting new people, though he wasn't as enthusiastic about it as he was when he was a freshman in college. It was that he didn't want to see the face of the man wearing the Captain America uniform.

His trip into the past was three years ago, but he still had dreams about Steve and Peggy. He had a feeling seeing someone else in the star-spangled getup would bring up old memories from the war. And new nightmares.

Sometimes, on the days when the sleeping pills didn't drown out the dreams of ice and snow, he wished he would have been born markless. Or with it halved, so he would have known that his soulmates were dead so he wouldn't have done the Seeking Dream to begin with. Only on rare occasions, typically in a mission that drew from expertise he'd learned in the war, did he treasure the memories from the Dream.

The bell over the door rang, and Natasha was the first to look up. She stood up, though she was slower than usual like she had some aches and pains too. "Bucky, are you all right?" she asked, her gaze zeroing in on where he was keeping his left arm immobile.

He would have shrugged if he didn't know how much extra pain that was likely to cause. "I've had worse."

Then a familiar voice, one that Bucky had heard in his dreams since that fateful night he'd performed the Seeking Dream said his name. "Bucky?"

He glanced up, sure he wasn't in enough pain to be hallucinating that much, only to find that the fake Captain America had his cowl off. He was a dead ringer for Steve.

But that couldn't be right. Steve had _died._

"Bucky, is that you?" the Captain America said, standing up and coming around the table. His gaze was glued to Bucky, roaming over him, seemingly trying to take him all in at once.

How did SHIELD find someone that looked _that much_ like Steve?

"I can't believe I didn't recognize you before," the fake was saying. He was within touching distance now. The dirt and grime on his face didn't cover up the flawless quality of his skin or the shadow on his jaw from the end-of-day stubble. "The hair's longer... you've put on more muscle but..." he stopped and looked Bucky in the eyes. His eyes were so blue and hope shown from them. "I'm sorry I didn't think it was possible until it was too late. Will you Accept me as your soulmate?"

Bucky didn't know what his face was doing. His heart gave a heavy thump and the ragged edges of his soul seemed to throb. As if through water, he heard someone cheekily ask, "Does it normally happen that quickly?" Just as muffled was Natasha's responding, "hush." It couldn't be Steve standing in front of him. It _couldn't._ Yet something in him was crying out that it _was._ His soulmark tingled. Acceptance of one of his soulmates was just a few words away, and he wanted it. He wanted it _desperately._

"I... uh," he tried to speak but his mouth was dry. He could see the rest of the team behind Steve, staring at them. Waiting.

He couldn't do it. He blinked and looked at Clint, knowing his eyes felt glassy, and if he wasn't careful he might cry. "Clint, can we get some ice and set my shoulder?" His voice sounded small, almost child-like, but he couldn't do anything about it. He was scared that even if he were to clear his throat, he would shatter like glass.

Clint, for the most part, didn't look surprised or even fazed at the situation or Bucky's response to it. "Yeah, kid," he said, nodding. He gently laid his hand on Bucky's back and led him away from Steve. "Come on, let's see if the kitchen staff have a breakroom or something so you can lay down."

As Clint led him away from the group—and Steve—Bucky couldn't bring himself to turn and look at him. The room was entirely silent as the kitchen door swung shut behind them.

Bucky didn't see Steve for three days. He almost convinced himself that he'd made him up entirely.

Between the unexpected stay in the hospital for a possible concussion from being thrown down a couple flights of stairs when one of those whales crash-landed into his building, and his family keeping him occupied as it was supposed to be his vacation, there hadn't been time for anything or anyone else.

He thought about talking to Becca or Abby or even his mom about all of it, but he didn't think dropping the truth on them after not telling them about the Seeking Dream in the first place was the best option. He debated going to Clint, who had a soulmate apparently, but even that felt wrong somehow. He ended up texting Natasha and meeting up at a cafe near Central Park.

It was extra crowded because of the damage to other parts of the city, but Bucky wasn't too worried. Billions of people had soulmates and talked about their troubles over lunch, his situation wasn't completely unique in that regard. He set up the scenario for her, from Abby's enthusiasm and encouragement to taking pictures of himself like a dweeb.

"You should have used chalk. Using salt is not for beginners," she said, interrupting him.

"Yeah, well, I know that now. Then I was just following the instructions in a book aimed at teen girls for slumber parties."

"I still use chalk in addition to Circle Salt when I can get away with it. Makes the circle much harder to break, but sometimes you need to get out quick, and the chalk leaves evidence," Natasha continued. Bucky hid a grin behind his water glass as he took a sip. He should have known she would have something to say about how he'd set up his circle that fateful night. She wasn't just a Kineticist, after all, she was an Illusionist too. She had to be, to be the master spy that she was. 

He went on to talk about meeting Steve and Peggy and the long year fighting on the Western front. He glossed over Peggy's death but did mention how he felt afterward. He talked about Steve going down with the plane and waking up disoriented. 

She interrupted again. "Now take this with a grain of salt," she grinned a little at her pun, "since I don't have a mark I never studied Bonds magic in-depth but what if you didn't wake up from the dream because Steve died but because there was Acceptance."

He shook his head. "But I didn't even realize they'd been my soulmates until after I woke up."

"Maybe it was his Acceptance that triggered it, not yours." She shrugged. "Just a thought. Like I said, I'm not an expert. Bonds are a complete mystery to me and Divination is always obscure and finicky. Seeking Dreams are both."

The next interruption wasn't from her but from a large shadow that blocked out the early afternoon sunlight. They looked up to see Steve standing there. He had a slightly pained expression on his face but otherwise looked good. Well, good was an overstatement, as the khaki pants and tucked in plaid shirt he was wearing looked like it could have come out of Bucky's grandpa's closet. The added brown leather jacket was the only millennial-looking thing about his appearance. 

"Umm, sorry to barge in, but I was... well," he gave a guilty wince, "following Natasha. I was wondering... Would you take a walk with me, Bucky?"

Bucky found he was less tongue-tied now with less of an audience. He glanced at Natasha, who gave him a little smirk and a nod. He stood and started to pull out his wallet. She waved him off, "I've got it. Go, you two need to talk."

He nodded in thanks and then looked at Steve. Steve gestured him along. They were quiet as they made their way through the entrance of the park and onto one of the less occupied walking paths. "I need to start off by saying I'm sorry," Steve said.

Bucky frowned and looked over at him, ready to forgive him whatever it was he was apologizing for but Steve shook his head.

"No, I should have known asking you for Acceptance then and there wasn't right. I did the same thing with Peggy, asking her immediately like that. I should have learned. But not just that. Back in the war... I—I thought maybe that you—well, it wasn't the done thing, then. We wouldn't have been able to walk around holding hands or having much of a life together even if I hadn't..." He took a deep breath. "I'm making a mess of this." He shook his head and put his hands into his pockets.

Bucky crossed his arms over his chest. This close to Steve made part of him ache but another part light up in joy, it was confusing inside his head.

"What I mean to say, I guess, is that I crashed that plane partly to make sure those bombs didn't reach the coast and partly because I didn't think we could have been together. I hoped that my dying would wake you up from your Seeking Dream so you, at least, could go back to your life." He slowed to a stop and looked away as if to study the trees.

"Christ, Steve, that's morbid," Bucky said, laughter choking out of him.

Steve looked back at him and at least had the gall to look sheepish. "Yeah, well. I don't know who I need to thank for giving me a second chance. A chance in this modern era with you, where men and women aren't arrested for having the soulmates they do."

"Well, it depends on where in the world you are, it's not safe like this everywhere," Bucky said. He uncrossed his arms and stuffed his hands into his pockets too. "I should apologize too. It was rude of me to leave you hanging like that the other day. The least I could have said was I'd think about it."

Steve's expression turned sad. "What do you need to think about? It's not like we're strangers, we've known each other for over a year. Fought together. Lost together."

Bucky licked his lips. This was the part he'd really wanted to talk to Natasha about. He supposed she would have told him to talk to Steve anyhow. "That was three years ago for me. Three long, hard years coming to terms with how my soulmates—plural because that's why my mark's purple, you and Peggy—were dead. It's been a struggle. I tried to join the Army and joined SHIELD instead, found some good friends. Learned that having a soulmate isn't all it's cracked up to be. Seen how devastating it can be to lose one. Though I mean, I saw that with you too, but I was grieving too, going through LSS just like you, so I didn't see how bad it could be."

"LSS?"

"Lost soulmate syndrome. It can affect anybody but it's especially traumatic for people in the military." Bucky sighed and reached up to run his fingers through his hair. "All that to say, I'm not the same person I used to be. I'm not the same person that you knew." He swallowed. "I don't even know if I still want a soulmate." 

Steve pinned him with a look.

"Fine, yes, I still... I want you as my soulmate. I just... I don't know if you'll want me, once you see how I've changed."

Steve reached out and grabbed Bucky's hand to stop him from fidgeting some more. "I will always want you, Buck. I'm sure we'll both have tough times. I've only been in this century for six months or so. I'm bound to make mistakes and hold values and opinions that are out-dated and need refreshing, but none of that looks nearly as overwhelming as it did just days ago when I didn't know if you were still alive or if I'd ever see you again." He looked Bucky in the eyes, hope still seem to radiate from the blue of them. "Will you Accept me as your soulmate? Flaws and outdated... _everything_ anyway?"

This time Bucky had an answer for him. "Yes, I Accept our Bond, outdated wardrobe and all." When Steve smiled at his words he chuckled. "I'm going to have to take you shopping. You look like you raided my grandpa's closet." Heat, centered on his soulmark, rushed across his skin. Steve raised his other hand to his chest at the same time.

"I guess this means my mark's purple now too, huh?"

Bucky nodded. "It should be."

Steve gave a mischevious little grin before stepping closer. "Maybe we should find somewhere so we can check?" Without waiting for a reply, he leaned forward and planted his lips on Bucky's. Bucky was probably being overdramatic and giddy, but it felt like the kiss of a lifetime. He thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.


End file.
